


All Things Dreamed

by B_Radley



Series: Diana's Journeys [20]
Category: Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Love, Multi, joy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 02:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14760867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B_Radley/pseuds/B_Radley
Summary: Dreaming and living in the darkness.





	All Things Dreamed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).



> From a prompt by Merfilly

The young woman watches as the huntress worries her lip with a sharp tooth in concentration. Her love hefts the unfamiliar knife, its slim design perfectly balanced in her scarlet fingers.

The young woman’s lips curl in a mischievous smile as the older woman lifts the knife to her shoulder with her left hand.

“Don’t even think about saying something to distract me, my girl,” the huntress says. “This isn’t one of your greenputt matches, with the loser buying lunch. Stakes are a bit higher in this one.”

“Who says that I haven’t used these stakes before in greenputt?” Dani Faygan replies. “You’d be amazed what I could win with just a tiny bit of the resonance, or a choice smartassed comment just at the right time.”

“You forget,” Shaak Ti says, as she releases the knife. “I’m immune to your charms, when I need to be.” The knife splits the broken branch pointing in her direction, embedding itself into the tree, the remaining pieces of the branch remaining on either side of the quivering blade.

“Hey!” Dani exclaims. “Your eyes were closed. We said no Force-use!”

“I was doing this with my eyes closed without the Force, before you were born, Daaineran,” Ti says dryly. “Besides,” she finishes. “I think I would’ve been within the rights of the challenge to use a bit, seeing how you’ve been trying to throw off my aim with that Zeltron witchery of yours. Not to mention running your tongue over your lips every time I look at you.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, dear,” Dani replies sweetly. “Shili is very dry. Need to keep wetting my lips.” Her eyes sparkle as they walk over to the knife. “I think the fact that you’ve been trying to drive me crazy when I throw, worrying your lip with that tooth—something that usually works on weakening my knees, gives me the right to try and get your motor running hot.”

Ti laughs. “Now it’s my turn to plead ignorance, girl. I would never cheat. Besides, that knife of yours is such a lightweight, I need all of my concentration.”

“Yeah, such a handicap,” Dani says dryly. Another mischief-making part of her brain is heard from. In one swift movement, she reaches over and draws Ti’s hunting blade from its sheathe on her bare thigh, and throws it at a near tree, without looking. Both of them stand for a moment, gazing into each other’s eyes.

A smirk slowly grows on Ti’s features. She very deliberately opens her mouth and moves one of her sharp incisors to the nearest lip.

On her lover.

Dani winces only slightly, as she feels her eyes transitioning to the black, the herald of strong emotion among her people. As their lips pull away, Dani stares into Ti’s violet eyes.

“So where did you pick up that expression, Shaak? The thing with the tooth. Have you always done it?”

 Ti smiles against her lips. “No. I think I may have picked it up from a student—a student of Tal’s. His young hunt-sister. She always seemed to do it when she was trying to solve a problem.” Ti’s smile turns devilish. “Or when she was trying to come up with a way to make Tal’s life miserable.”

Dani’s laughter sounds across the plains. “That’s a worthy endeavor. I wish I had more opportunity to do it.”

Ti looks away. “Me, too,” she whispers. She shakes her head. “No. This is our day. No sadness. It’s not every day that I break the Jedi Code and take a heart bond. Just happiness and joy, my love.”

Dani’s eyes tear, but the smile on her lips and in those eyes speak to the joy. They both look over at the tree, where Dani had hurled the hunting blade.

She rolls her eyes as she sees the knife resting on the ground. She grins ruefully. “Well, I guess that’s one thing that the ‘Zeltron witchery’ doesn’t work on.”

“It doesn’t need to, love,” Ti says. She places her hands on Dani’s shoulders. “I think that means you lose the bet, dear. Let’s see what it is really good for.”

Dani smiles as she allows Ti to push her to her knees. She reaches up and places her arms around Ti’s hips, bringing her closer.

Dani cries out in pain as her head intersects with the top of the medbunk. She looks over to her right, her eyes focusing on the unfamiliar room.

Draq’ Bel Iblis, her unacknowledged father, rises from his seat, his large hands moving over to her cheeks.

His eyes tell her that the last night has not been a horrible nightmare.

At least not one only confined to her sleep.

Without a word, she lays back down, her eyes still heavy with whatever they had given her, on this night of nights.

Her mind easily flows back to the dream. The dream of her last joyful hours with her heart-bond. She feels the skin of her hand fall on the jewel at her waist. A jewel of red and gold amber from a spirit tree of her world; the awarded trophy of a master huntress embedded within.

Her mind flows back to the first time she had seen her love. When Ti had been searching for her apprentice, after a particularly grueling fight with a darksider on her father’s world.

The desperate love in the Jedi Master’s eyes as she looked around, the pain of the lightsaber cuts on her ribs ignored.

Dani focuses on that look of love. She dreams of it and others, until she falls into a deeper sleep again. Her mind’s eye locks on that beloved face.

She knows that the nightmare will still be there when she awakens.

~=~=~=~=~=

Dani comes awake, her eyes gathering her surroundings. She looks ruefully over at Arseven, Ahsoka’s faithful little astromech, who sits watch on the controls of the _Draq’stone._

 _Something I was supposed to be doing_. “Sorry, little man,” she says. She chooses to ignore the sniggering warble that comes in response. _It probably involves some variation on her nickname from the two droids. The Red Dragonspawn._

The hatch at the rear of the compartment opens. The older version of that padawan—the padawan bedeviled by a younger huntress in her dreams stands framed in the light.

Bryne Covenant walks in and stands over her shoulder. He reaches down and kisses her gently. “What’re you doing up? I’ve still got another hour before Murta relieves me,” she asks.

“Just got Ahsoka to sleep. The last mission was a rough one. She lost two members of a new cell; barely got the others and herself out before they were discovered.”

She sees the guilt in his green eyes. She shakes her head. “She’s fine, Bryne,” Dani says. “You might not’ve prevented any of this, if you’d’ve been there.”

He grins, the expression crooked, as always—especially when he takes the weight of the universe on his shoulders. “Yeah. That’s what she said. Between bouts of dissecting every move that she made.”

“Let me guess. That damned sharp tooth worrying her lip, those diamonds on her forehead scrunched up.”

He laughs. “You know it well,” he says. He looks away. “I love the look, but I hate what sometimes causes it.”

Dani takes his left hand in hers, massaging the scar tissue at various locations on the skin. “Me too,” she says, thinking of her dream. “I was just thinking of that particular expression.”

“Ti?” he asks simply.

“Yeah. She claimed that she picked up the expression from Ahsoka. From when she was trying to figure out how to increase the amount of misery in your life in the clan.”

Their laughter rises together. “I’m not too sure of that. Runt told me that she picked it up from Master Ti.”

“Guess we’ll never know the truth,” Dani says, wincing as the words come out of her mouth.

He lifts her hands to his lips. “You were dreaming of her. Was it at least a good dream?”

She stares out at hyperspace. “It started out beautifully. I remembered the couple of days we spent on Shili after we formally bonded. The last time that I saw her. Then it morphed into the night I awoke after Draq’ drugged me. When the Jedi died.

“I can’t seem to finish the good dreams,” she whispers.

They remain silent after that for several minutes. Bryne pulls Dani against his chest; rests his nose in her hair.

“I can’t really explain it, love,” he says. “I think it’s possible that all of us dream like that. You. Me. Nola. The happiness we felt in the past maybe just out of reach. It didn’t seem to be like that when we mourned Ti together—in the Zeltron way.

Dani smiles as she thinks of the bursts of light, mixed with fond memories, and sensations of warm and cool skin against hers, of gazing into blue and green eyes as they shared the memories and the light. “Yeah. I know. I think that the resonance helped each of us. But we can’t afford to do that every time we grieve and dream. We’d fall into the dreams and never get out.”

“I know,” he says. “I think we may just have to concentrate on building our own joys and memories—in spite of what’s going on around us.”

Dani smile. “How’d you get so wise, stud?” she asks, kissing him again.

“I have great teachers,” he replies against her lips. Her eyebrows raise at the tense.

She breaks free and slaps him on the ass. “Tell you what. Why don’t you go back and take that younger huntress in your arms and smooth those forehead wrinkles. You’ve precious little time together as it is.”

“Why don’t you come with me? The trashcan can take over the watch,” he says, motioning to Arseven. They both choose to ignore his vote on that idea.

“No. I’m going to do some thinking. When Murta comes in, I have an urge to go wrap myself around a certain little girl until she wakes up.”

He nods, his eyes growing soft. “Jamelyn is lucky as hell to have you as a guardian.” He kisses her forehead. “As a second mother.”

Dani nods briefly, blushing crimson. “If you two can stay in the bed long enough, I’ll let Uncle Boge and Uncle Murta look after her breakfast and I’ll come join you.” She gives a hooded look. “We’ll do some catching up.”

As she walks towards the Elector-Presumptive’s cabin, Dani stops and sways as a feeling of vertigo comes over her. She puts her hand out to the nearest bulkhead to steady herself. As she does, the sensation of warm scarlet skin against her crimson moves into her mind. She hears a whisper in a musical, accented voice.

_Live, my girl. All of you live. Concentrate on each other. Don’t worry about your dead._

_We watch over you, in some way or another._

Dani shivers as a cool breeze touches her skin, for a brief instant. She smiles at the impossibility of a breeze on an environmentally controlled ship.

 _All things are possible, with the Force,_ she hears in a laughing, mischievous voice.


End file.
